WD 320gb Harddrive Not Mounting- How to force mount.

I purchased a WD Element 320gb External Harddrive for my son's G4 running Leopard 10.5.8. It is not showing on the desktop or in Disk Utility. The WD Element is powered up using USB 2.0. It is pre-formatted for Windows FAT32, but claims to be compatible with OSX. The WD Support page says to plug it in for 'a considerable amount of time,' and the mac will (hopefully) see it. I have had it plugged in for close to an hour with no result.

can you see it in System Profiler?

Can you try it on another machine, even a win box? Are you plugging it straight into the mac or from a hub, try going straight to the mac.

Thanks for the replies.
It is not showing in System Profiler.
It is plugged directly into the mac. It does show in his Windows computer, so we know it works....

BTW... I tried plugging it into my powerbook g4 with 10.5.8, and the same thing. no mounting, not visible in disk utility. not in system profiler... very frustrating.

khw1204 said:

Thanks for the replies.
It is not showing in System Profiler.
It is plugged directly into the mac. It does show in his Windows computer, so we know it works....

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A little backtracking:

1. Is it getting power via USB or through a power adapter? Check WD for Mac drivers.

It is powered via USB. I could not find drivers on WD, but will check again. Thanks...

The G4 may not be providing sufficient power. What kind of Mac are we talking about here? I don't think most of them came with USB 2 so it may be a USB 1 port, which would have insufficient power to run the drive.

baggss is right. USB1.1 is stock on G4s, thus no power.

Purchase a USB 2.0 PCI card for it. $20 max at any computer parts store.

I had to do the same with my Powermac G4.

So if I am understanding this, the WD HD needs USB 2.0, but his G4 USB is 1.1. So, even though the ext HD shows as powered, it is not powered enough? Thanks for the reply...

Q: This USB 2.0 PCI card... is it an internal install?

khw1204 said:

So if I am understanding this, the WD HD needs USB 2.0, but his G4 USB is 1.1. So, even though the ext HD shows as powered, it is not powered enough? Thanks for the reply...

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Correct. Does the drive spin up (make any noise like it's reading data)?

USB 2.0 is what it's designed for - performance would take a serious hit even if you got it to run on USB1.1.

khw1204 said:

Q: This USB 2.0 PCI card... is it an internal install?

Click to expand...

Yes it is. Click Here for examples.

Difficulty installing will depend on your machine. Which G4 is it?

They can spin up but not have enough power for transfer, the fact its working on a Winbox would tend to reinforce this. Do you have a powered usb hub handy?

Wow. Such great and timely replies. I really appreciate it. to answer the questions, it is a Powerbook 15" G4. The WD HD does make noise when plugged into USB. I do have a powered USN hub handy, and will try using it to confirm.

Ok... got my powered USB hub plugged in and the WD HD plugged into it and it showed up on the desktop immediately. Great! Now, the USB PCI card... please explain. Does it slip into the PCI card slot? Is it externally powered? Bit of a novice here. Sorry...

Tried using my 2.0 powered USB hub and the WD HD showed up immediately. Thanks for your help. As far as the PCI Card is concerned, any hints as to specs and how-to instructions?

If portability is desirable, perhaps one of these Amazon.com: CyberPower CP-H420MP 4-Port USB Hub: Electronics (not cheap - I think they may be discontinued) may suit your purposes.

G4 PowerBooks went USB2 from Sept 2003 [source]Mactracker - get info on any Mac], and the first 15" model had both USB2 and FW800.

Powered USB hub worked. Any suggestions as to which USB PCI card to pick? Installation how-to instructions online?

khw1204 said:

As far as the PCI Card is concerned, any hints as to specs and how-to instructions?

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Sonnet - Allegro USB: USB 2.0 PCI Card Read right down the bottom about coming out of sleep mode though.

Opening and working on a G4 is great! That drop-down side door, and the 4 - 64-bit 33 MHz PCI slots are right there ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PowerMac_G4_MDD_open.jpg.